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Why are all the people fighting the fights I want to get behind, completely obnoxious? Kim Dotcom, Juian Assange, Richard Stallman, etc... Can't we have a cha

by rymith 14y ago

Why are all the people fighting the fights I want to get behind, completely obnoxious? Kim Dotcom, Juian Assange, Richard Stallman, etc... Can't we have a champion for the digital causes with the charisma that exceeds new money red neck, rapist, or raving homeless person? I'm not asking for MLK or Gandhi, just an average Joe.

a_bonobo 14y ago
Cory Doctorow has quite the charisma - I love his speech at last year's Chaos Computer Conference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUEvRyemKSg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUEvRyemKSg Don't really like his novels (subtlety is French to them) but his speeches are great.
jivatmanx 14y ago
Because political activism on an issue that's not obvious injustice is a quixotic, and the smart people are out building new things/finding ways to route around the problem rather than fighting a losing battle.
- possibilistic 14y ago
  While it may not be universally true, I quite like this. Any insight on how one might route around the upcoming internet control battle that will take place in the UN? Or the neverending stream of [RI|MP]AA-written laws that congress tries to pass?
- freshhawk 14y ago
  if by "route around the problem" you mean "extract money from the broken system" then I would agree. Otherwise I'd need to be convinced with examples.
cynicalkane 14y ago
From what is publicly known, there's very little reason to believe Assange raped anyone and the Swedish authorities seem uninterested in questioning Assange, filing charges, or anything besides extraditing him to Sweden for some reason. I don't really want to talk about the details and hijack the thread, but there's something Kafkaesque about how thing shave been handled. The terrifying thing about the case is people are ready to hate him because of flimsy rape allegations, even on Hacker News! Anyway, I guess the point of this post is Assange isn't all that obnoxious if you ignore the rape media circus. Maybe he is egotistical but most important hackers are.
- rymith 14y ago
  To quote Shakespeare "The lady doth protest too much, methinks" Fighting extradition was one thing, but asylum from Ecuador has me fairly convinced there is more to the change than I originally thought.
  - barrkel 14y ago
    And 24-hour Met stakeout outside the embassy, cost running into the millions, is standard for an arrest warrant?
    - rymith 14y ago
      Good point.
    - citricsquid 14y ago
      This has been discussed to death, but... it's not the arrest warrant that caused the large police presence, it was the fact that someone that is trying to avoid deportation was using embassy soil to do so, while flaunting it and being in the centre of a large amount of controversy. If Assange had just gone to Sweden like he was expected to then nothing would have happened with the police, if any high value media personality was wanted on an international arrest warrant and sought refuge in an embassy like Assange has done it would have warranted the same media attention and thus the same police presence. The Assange case may be full of suspicious circumstances, but I don't think the heavy police presence at the embassy is anything other than the result of the media circus surrounding the situation (which is of Assange's own creation).
      - rhizome 14y ago
        Are you implying that the police presence was demanded by the media so that they could have a better story, because there was "controversy?" I'm not sure that's a good justification for the use of public resources.
        14y ago
spindritf 14y ago
Well-adjusted individuals who do well within the system have little reason to fight it.
MemorableZebra 14y ago
I think part of the problem is that many of them just get more headlines as a result of their weirdness. There are plenty of people fighting these fights without being insane, Schneier for one. http://www.schneier.com/ http://www.schneier.com/ You just don't hear him being accused of raping anyone, that's all.
qq66 14y ago
It's because the government strategically makes example cases of the least sympathetic individuals. Why do you think all of the anti-privacy legislation is deployed first against child pornographers?
brabram 14y ago
Just take a look at Eben Moglen[0], he is a very brilliant speaker and a brilliant man in general. Or Jérémie Zimmermann[1] for the European side. Or Benjamin Bayart for the French side. [0] http://youtu.be/sKOk4Y4inVY http://youtu.be/sKOk4Y4inVY [1] http://youtu.be/qRiY9tkdkV8 http://youtu.be/qRiY9tkdkV8 [2] http://youtu.be/i7JVzN3dM34 http://youtu.be/i7JVzN3dM34 (in french)
bravoyankee 14y ago
Then you be the champion. I'm serious (not being sarcastic or anything). Someone else needs to step up to the plate.
wololo 14y ago
MLK and Gandhi were real people once too http://www.snopes.com/history/american/mlking.asp http://www.snopes.com/history/american/mlking.asp http://www.commentarymagazine.com/article/the-gandhi-nobody-knows/ http://www.commentarymagazine.com/article/the-gandhi-nobody-... http://wagingnonviolence.org/2012/02/gandhi-and-the-dalit-controversy-the-limits-of-the-moral-force-of-an-individual/ http://wagingnonviolence.org/2012/02/gandhi-and-the-dalit-co...
mylittlepony 14y ago
You are not helping by unjustly calling him a rapist. In fact, even if he did what's he's being accused of, in most countries wouldn't be considered rape. If you only read the headlines you are better off not reading news at all.
nmridul 14y ago
Because, when a smart person comes out in the open, he quickly gets labelled as a new money red neck, rapist, or raving homeless person. That is the power of the opponents. They are able to manipulate the media outlets better.
- Semaphor 14y ago
  Don't know about Stallman but Assange has some ego issues that didn't get smaller with the media attention (though to be fair without his ego he probably wouldn't have survived being the public image of Wikileaks) and Dotcom always was a Grade A scumbag.
alexhektor 14y ago
@ rymith: very interesting that your post is the only one slightly on-topic ;) And I totally agree. We need a president of the internet. I'm serious.
rdl 14y ago
There are a lot of great (personally) people doing great work, even in IT/security/digital liberty. It's just that the more obstreperous ones stick out in your mind. Linus Torvalds is pretty universally regarded as a nice person, and very important to open source. Same with a lot of the earlier Bell Labs UNIX people, and computer scientists like Knuth, Ritchie, etc. Within the startup world, it's even easier -- most of the well respected early angel investors, founders, etc. are decent people. Every EFF employee that I've spent time with has been great, and a lot of them (Seth Schoen; Wendy Seltzer come to mind) are really important. Same with Prof Zittrain, Lessig, etc. Even in computer security -- Jon Callas, Bruce Schneier, Ian Goldberg, Hugh Daniels, John Gilmore, Ben and Adam Laurie, Nicko and Alex van Someren, etc.
jQueryIsAwesome 14y ago
As soon as you find one they will make rape accusations against him, or just anything that is as evil in your eyes.

by rymith 14y ago

a_bonobo 14y ago

Cory Doctorow has quite the charisma - I love his speech at last year's Chaos Computer Conference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUEvRyemKSg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUEvRyemKSg Don't really like his novels (subtlety is French to them) but his speeches are great.

jivatmanx 14y ago

Because political activism on an issue that's not obvious injustice is a quixotic, and the smart people are out building new things/finding ways to route around the problem rather than fighting a losing battle.

possibilistic 14y ago
While it may not be universally true, I quite like this. Any insight on how one might route around the upcoming internet control battle that will take place in the UN? Or the neverending stream of [RI|MP]AA-written laws that congress tries to pass?
freshhawk 14y ago
if by "route around the problem" you mean "extract money from the broken system" then I would agree. Otherwise I'd need to be convinced with examples.

cynicalkane 14y ago

From what is publicly known, there's very little reason to believe Assange raped anyone and the Swedish authorities seem uninterested in questioning Assange, filing charges, or anything besides extraditing him to Sweden for some reason. I don't really want to talk about the details and hijack the thread, but there's something Kafkaesque about how thing shave been handled. The terrifying thing about the case is people are ready to hate him because of flimsy rape allegations, even on Hacker News! Anyway, I guess the point of this post is Assange isn't all that obnoxious if you ignore the rape media circus. Maybe he is egotistical but most important hackers are.

rymith 14y ago
To quote Shakespeare "The lady doth protest too much, methinks" Fighting extradition was one thing, but asylum from Ecuador has me fairly convinced there is more to the change than I originally thought.
- barrkel 14y ago
  And 24-hour Met stakeout outside the embassy, cost running into the millions, is standard for an arrest warrant?
  - rymith 14y ago
    Good point.
  - citricsquid 14y ago
    This has been discussed to death, but... it's not the arrest warrant that caused the large police presence, it was the fact that someone that is trying to avoid deportation was using embassy soil to do so, while flaunting it and being in the centre of a large amount of controversy. If Assange had just gone to Sweden like he was expected to then nothing would have happened with the police, if any high value media personality was wanted on an international arrest warrant and sought refuge in an embassy like Assange has done it would have warranted the same media attention and thus the same police presence. The Assange case may be full of suspicious circumstances, but I don't think the heavy police presence at the embassy is anything other than the result of the media circus surrounding the situation (which is of Assange's own creation).
    - rhizome 14y ago
      Are you implying that the police presence was demanded by the media so that they could have a better story, because there was "controversy?" I'm not sure that's a good justification for the use of public resources.
      - 14y ago

spindritf 14y ago

Well-adjusted individuals who do well within the system have little reason to fight it.

MemorableZebra 14y ago

I think part of the problem is that many of them just get more headlines as a result of their weirdness. There are plenty of people fighting these fights without being insane, Schneier for one. http://www.schneier.com/ http://www.schneier.com/ You just don't hear him being accused of raping anyone, that's all.

qq66 14y ago

It's because the government strategically makes example cases of the least sympathetic individuals. Why do you think all of the anti-privacy legislation is deployed first against child pornographers?

brabram 14y ago

Just take a look at Eben Moglen[0], he is a very brilliant speaker and a brilliant man in general. Or Jérémie Zimmermann[1] for the European side. Or Benjamin Bayart for the French side. [0] http://youtu.be/sKOk4Y4inVY http://youtu.be/sKOk4Y4inVY [1] http://youtu.be/qRiY9tkdkV8 http://youtu.be/qRiY9tkdkV8 [2] http://youtu.be/i7JVzN3dM34 http://youtu.be/i7JVzN3dM34 (in french)

bravoyankee 14y ago

Then you be the champion. I'm serious (not being sarcastic or anything). Someone else needs to step up to the plate.

wololo 14y ago

MLK and Gandhi were real people once too http://www.snopes.com/history/american/mlking.asp http://www.snopes.com/history/american/mlking.asp http://www.commentarymagazine.com/article/the-gandhi-nobody-knows/ http://www.commentarymagazine.com/article/the-gandhi-nobody-... http://wagingnonviolence.org/2012/02/gandhi-and-the-dalit-controversy-the-limits-of-the-moral-force-of-an-individual/ http://wagingnonviolence.org/2012/02/gandhi-and-the-dalit-co...

mylittlepony 14y ago

You are not helping by unjustly calling him a rapist. In fact, even if he did what's he's being accused of, in most countries wouldn't be considered rape. If you only read the headlines you are better off not reading news at all.

nmridul 14y ago

Because, when a smart person comes out in the open, he quickly gets labelled as a new money red neck, rapist, or raving homeless person. That is the power of the opponents. They are able to manipulate the media outlets better.

Semaphor 14y ago
Don't know about Stallman but Assange has some ego issues that didn't get smaller with the media attention (though to be fair without his ego he probably wouldn't have survived being the public image of Wikileaks) and Dotcom always was a Grade A scumbag.

alexhektor 14y ago

@ rymith: very interesting that your post is the only one slightly on-topic ;) And I totally agree. We need a president of the internet. I'm serious.

rdl 14y ago

There are a lot of great (personally) people doing great work, even in IT/security/digital liberty. It's just that the more obstreperous ones stick out in your mind. Linus Torvalds is pretty universally regarded as a nice person, and very important to open source. Same with a lot of the earlier Bell Labs UNIX people, and computer scientists like Knuth, Ritchie, etc. Within the startup world, it's even easier -- most of the well respected early angel investors, founders, etc. are decent people. Every EFF employee that I've spent time with has been great, and a lot of them (Seth Schoen; Wendy Seltzer come to mind) are really important. Same with Prof Zittrain, Lessig, etc. Even in computer security -- Jon Callas, Bruce Schneier, Ian Goldberg, Hugh Daniels, John Gilmore, Ben and Adam Laurie, Nicko and Alex van Someren, etc.

jQueryIsAwesome 14y ago

As soon as you find one they will make rape accusations against him, or just anything that is as evil in your eyes.